


That Fragile Heart

by Emby_M



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Past Drug Addiction, Post-Gang, Reunions, lads we're back at it again with the unusual ships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-03-08 10:45:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18893056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emby_M/pseuds/Emby_M
Summary: "Simon," Orville says. It's the only thing he can say. It has been his prayer for so long - he's prayed more to Simon for the last two decades than he has to God, heretical as it is. One word, one name. Simon.-Reverend Orville Swanson makes a trip to Rhodes to visit an old friend.





	That Fragile Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Just trust me on this.

If you watched Pearson's over in Rhodes today, the seventeenth of August, 1906, you would see a priest standing there.

Despite the dog days being upon them, despite the fact most folks have fled inside or onto porches to grab some respite from the relentless heat, the priest is standing there in his full vestments, worrying the brim of a hat like he was trying to wring truth out of it.

Orville swallows, on this August day, and reconsiders.

He's reconsidered enough times. It's been seven years. It's been a long, long seven years. But... everything was better. He was better. It was okay, somehow.

When he shows up, he will not be a disgraced Reverend. He will not be drunk, or high, or weeping. He will be able to say his accomplishments clear and know he has earned them.

The heat is unrelenting, the sweat dripping down his back under the frock and waistcoat and shirt he wears, his clerical collar sticking cloyingly to his Adam's apple.

_Okay. I'll do it._

He worries his hat brim more.

 _Now_ , he tells himself, willing his feet to move.

He doesn't move.

He gives up for now. Turns around and retreats back to the porch of the hotel he's staying in for some relief from the still-baking heat. He should remember Rhodes, but he was still drunk as could be when he was here last, and the town is both too-large and too-small, especially coming from New York.

Orville sighs. Leans against the pole, staring out on the modest shop.

Simon is in there, he thinks. Simon should be in there. He went to so much trouble - asking around like a dope, retracing all the various places they landed, hoping and praying Simon didn't reconnect with his seafaring ways, telling Sister Catherine he was taking a sabbatical to reach out to forgotten communities in the Midwest - 

That last bit wasn't a lie, per se. But he was always here for Simon.

Simon Pearson. The man who the much-less-stable and much-more-easily-broken Orville Swanson had given his heart and soul to, and whose hands had never broken that fragile heart.

He'll go.

He'll go - now.

Now.

Now for _sure._

He sighs again. A dog, lying on the porch, snuffles quietly.

There's something in his chest that's saying -- maybe not. There's this moment of stabbing fear when he thinks about walking in to that shop and finding - finding what?

Simon wouldn't be there. Simon would have died.

Simon would look up and would greet him in absolutely blasé nonrecognition. And it would shatter Orville apart. Even though they'd ended it when the Van der Linde gang started to unravel. When Orville left.

Even though when they had said goodbye, when Simon had looked at him, so even, the unpretentious gaze of a navy-man-made-outlaw, and had finally seen a man worth calling his _lover._  Simon had murmured those quiet names against his neck, had whispered "lover, darling, husband, soulmate," until Orville was weeping into the man's shoulder, babbling back all the sweet terms he'd wanted to call Simon for so many years but couldn't, not after Simon had said clear as day _I can't call you my lover when you're getting so intoxicated all the time. I can't do that to myself._

Orville got clean for Simon, but more importantly, he got sober for himself. For the version of himself that Simon had always seen, believed in. The man he is now.

Orville finds his hand is on the doorknob before he knows it is -- perhaps a moment of divine providence, the way he blinked through his thoughts.

And he steps up into the shop and prays, prays like a sinner in a church, like a changed man, which he supposes he is.

The inside of the shop is cool, quiet - dark, too, compared to the blear of outside. A little central island for self-service. It is well stocked, and well-maintained -

And he turns to the right, to look at the counter, finally, and comes face to face with-

With someone he does not know.

She's a handsome woman, strong-looking and vital, with a kind of frank charm that comes from her shaggy-curly hair and freckles -- but she is not Simon.

And Orville's heart drops, low, into his stomach.

"Hello sir," she says, but she's looking at him funny, one eyebrow high and the other crumpled down low on her face.

"Um, hello," he says, quietly, "Um."

She sits up a little, eyebrows furrowed a bit deeper. Like she wasn't sure if he was a man or a dog.

He turns to her. Quietly rests his hand on the counter. Worries the corner of the catalog quietly, looking down at her sitting form.

"Um," he says. Very quietly. "Is your... is the owner in?"

He's not even sure if Simon owns this place. If Simon still exists out here, if anything.

A grin cracks along her face, bright and brittle but certain and sure. "Yep."

She goes to a side door and opens it inward. "Someone here for ya, Simon," she titters.

Orville's heart, now reminding him it exists, hammers in his neck. Screams, even, burns down to his toes.

The thought of the first ugly time he had mumbled that he loved Simon springs to mind. When he had come to Simon sloppily drunk and messy and tried to kiss Simon like he was a dog in heat, and Simon had instead wrapped him in a blanket and made him strong coffee to sober him up.

And then once he sobered up with that coffee, when he came onto Simon again and Simon took him to bed like he was trying to send him into divine ecstasy, and when Orville had wept with the _feelings_  and had sobbed into Simon's shoulder that he loved him-

How hard and fast his heart beat, feeling as though the world had come down on his shoulders. Feeling as though he had put too much out there -- that the weight of those words would rend them in two, destroy them.

But Simon, Simon who should be a saint in his own right, just chuckled quiet against his cheek. Just said back, like it was simple, "Love you too."

Simon grumbles from the back room, the sound of him getting up, so familiar even seven years out -- the handsome woman chuckles, and says, "You owe me a dollar," before letting him past.

Lord.

Simon is just as beautiful as the day they parted. Still so robust, so pleasantly voluptuous. He's lost a little more of his hair, and it's graying along his temples, but the simple warmth of his face is unchanged.

People used to make fun of Orville when he would slur that Simon Pearson Is The Handsomest Man In The World And You Cannot Change My Mind - but it is true, and it was always true. At least to him.

Simon comes out wiping ink-stained hands on a rag. In the summer heat, Simon is glowing, gently sweaty in a light striped shirt. "Yes, what can I help you with?" He says, but he doesn't look up.

"Simon," Orville says. It's the only thing he can say. It has been his prayer for so long - he's prayed more to Simon for the last two decades than he has to God, heretical as it is. One word, one name. Simon.

Simon's gaze slowly lifts - he knows who it is before he even looks up, it plays out clear as day on his expression - and then Simon is looking at him, for the first time in years.

To be looked at like that.

A shiver goes quiet down Orville's back.

He thinks of when they met -- after Dutch and Hosea had robbed the train he was on, days after he'd been ousted from Boston, ousted from his Quincy's arms, ousted from his medical practice and his livelihood, and he had been willing to die for anything, even if it was two particularly pretty outlaws. When they'd returned to camp, and Hosea had barked for Pearson to _get this man something to eat, he looks like he's been starving_  and Simon had come out looking like a friend, and had entertained a very down Orville with stories and jokes and sympathetic eyes.

Those eyes. So very brown, deep and kind.

A smile spreads along Simon's face.

"Orville," he breathes.

Orville has to resist the urge to weep. To fall to his knees and cling to Simon in joy.

"Orville!" Simon repeats, throwing his arms wide, the smile growing near blinding before Orville is enveloped in those sturdy arms.

"Simon," he laughs, tucking his face into the crook of Simon's neck, breathing deep -- the scent of Simon had faded over time in his memory but is so familiar to him. "I missed you."

"I missed you too!" Simon giggles, the sound of it burbling in Orville's stomach. "Oh, what are you doing here, how have you been!"

The words stick in his throat, uncertain and warbling. His sinuses are burning - he's going to cry. But if he's going to cry, he'll do it in the absolute safety of this embrace. "I'm doing well, I came to visit you-"

And then Simon pulls back, his hands on Orville's gaunt cheeks, and smiles so broad. And then is kissing him.

It's a _hello_ and an _I'm so glad you're here_ and an _I missed you_ all in one. Simon's lips trace his like they've lost no time, and Orville has to swallow down the tears-

Except he sobs, quiet and true, against Simon's lips.

Simon just laughs, carefully cradles Orville's cheeks, murmurs "Hey, hey, it's okay. I love you," and Orville feels at _home._

Simon tucks Orville back into the crook of his neck, hiding his weeping from the handsome woman who's now sat back at the counter. "Susanna, do you mind-?"

Apparently whatever she responds with is in the affirmative. He laughs, his surprisingly delicate hands smoothing a warm path down Orville's back.

"Come on, then," he murmurs, "Let's go and catch up."

**Author's Note:**

> These sweet old men, man. Lov em.  
> Kudos and comments are always appreciated!


End file.
